Monday, December 2, 2013

SG Sales Guru: Sales Clinic

Dear Fans of SG Sales Guru,

Sales can be a lonely profession as many sales professionals view each other as a competitor. In some sense, sales is a zero-sum game as a buyer either buys from you or your colleague. As a result of this mind-set, sales professionals have no one to turn to for advice.

Recognizing this need, SG Sales Guru has created this page as a "sales clinic". If you have any questions or challenges you have about the sales process, drop us a comment and we will give you our "diagnosis" and prescribe the right "medicine" for you.

2 comments:

As part of our sales process, our company has a money back guarantee. During the sales preview, buyers are incentivized to sign-up for our program on the spot via a special discount. To benefit from the special discounts, buyers have to pay a deposit of no less than $200.

My question is this. At a recent preview, I managed to get a buyer to place a deposit. He however called me the next day to say he changed his mind and wanted his deposit back. Since the company had a money back guarantee, I had no choice but to agree.

This is a typical case of buyer's remorse. There are two things which I can suggest.

Firstly, before you agree to the refund, seek to under why the buyer has changed his mind. Perhaps, ask him what has changed since yesterday and if it is purely a case of being uncertain, remind him of the benefits he will gain.

My second suggestion is actually a preventive approach. Immediately after the buyer has signed on the dotted line, get someone from senior management to reassure him that he has made the right decision. If possible, give him a free gift as a token of your appreciation to him for believing in the company. While not a big deterrent for him to change his mind, having taken and (ideally) used the gift you have given him, it will make it that much harder to change his mind.